Quicksand Page 15

  Nora frowned. “What?”

  “Well, I’m just a lowly drug guy, but if I were checking a rape victim, I’d probably stop as soon as I found semen. But if she had had sex with someone the previous day, she probably would have washed herself from the outside.” Nora shifted in her seat, keeping her face very still. Ben continued, “But there’s nothing she can do about her insides. And former science guys like me happen to know that sperm can live up to five days in the right conditions…”

  An aide poked her head in the door. “There’s an Akram al-Tan … al-Tan…” She looked down at the sheet of paper in front of her, wrinkled her forehead, then looked blankly back at them. Finally she said, “You have a visitor in interview room six.”

  Nora gathered her things. “Will you call Monty and suggest that he look more thoroughly? Maybe see if Kylie had gonorrhea, too? If Dewayne’s what they had in common…” her voice trailed off. Then she shook her head as though to expel any thought of Dewayne Fulton, a.k.a. Reality. “I’ll get started in room six.”

  * * *

  Akram al-Tanukhi fumbled with his visitor’s ID, clipping and reclipping it to his sweater.

  It had not been difficult to get him to come in. The agent who took the summons found him at home. Akram had asked to bring his own car because he had an afternoon class; he looked hollow-eyed with worry and seemed eager to help.

  Nora exhaled slowly before beginning with Akram. The scene with the father had not ended the way she hoped, and she was determined not to cause more problems than she solved this time. She started by asking him for the one thing she most regretted not getting from his mother: the names and addresses of some of Hafsa’s friends. He began writing down some names of family friends on the pad of paper she pushed toward him.

  “No doubt your parents described to you our visit to your home,” she said.

  Akram shifted in his chair. “My dad was pretty upset,” he volunteered cautiously. “My mom … well, she’s been upset for a few days now, so that was nothing new.”

  Ben walked in, and Nora introduced them, then asked cautiously, “Why was your father so upset?”

  “I’m not sure,” Akram answered. “I think he felt like you guys overstepped; he took offense that you were poking through the house. As though you might think we had something to hide.”

  “Do you?” Nora asked.

  Akram’s eyes widened slightly. “Of course not. My sister’s disappeared. We just want to find her.”

  “Then why was your dad so angry when I was in your sister’s room?”

  Akram shrugged. “He’s pretty protective of Hafsa.”

  “And yet, he sent you to college instead of her. Sacrificed her future for yours.”

  “Well—it sounds bad when you say it like that,” Akram protested. “Hafsa understood. She was sad and all, but I made her a promise.”

  “What kind of promise?” asked Ben.

  “I told her that as soon as I have a job, I’ll pay for her college education. If she wants to go to Harvard, I’ll pay for it. If she wants to go get a Ph.D., I’ll pay for it. And that’s her plan.”

  “You are her big plan?” Nora didn’t mask her irritation.

  Akram frowned. “No, but, you know, to hang on. Not give in to Baba.”

  “To give in to what?”

  Akram seemed to think he’d said too much. He looked flustered. “I—”

  Nora and Ben regarded him in expectant silence.

  Finally, he said, “Well, Baba feels like she should focus more on marriage and children.”

  Nora bit back ten different acerbic remarks. “And how do you feel about these options for your sister?”

  “Oh, you know.…” Akram made a long, heavy exhalation. “You have to understand who Baba is. He left Iraq against his will, a refugee, but did it because the situation had become so bad.”

  Ben and Nora waited for him to continue.

  “He just … Well, making sure that Hafsa gets married is all he knows how to do to protect her and make sure she has a happy future.”

  “And Hafsa, does she still want to go to college instead?” Ben pressed.

  Akram nodded. “More than anything. So I guess … her idea of a happy future and his are different.”

  I’ve heard that one before, Nora thought.

  Ben said, “Can you describe a little more how your father and sister interact?”

  Akram looked nervous. “What do you mean?”

  Nora offered, “How do they talk to each other? Do they joke a lot or fight a lot?”

  “Well, Baba’s not much of a joker,” Akram began. “But I guess that in the last few years their relationship has been … well, more tense than it was when Hafsa was younger.”

  “Because of his pressure on her to marry?”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Akram said.

  “Do suitors come over to the house?”

  “Oh, yeah, all the time. It makes things really crazy. Mama’s always cleaning and baking to host some new guy for Hafsa to meet.”

  “And Hafsa’s reaction?”

  Akram smiled ruefully. “She rejects every one. Usually because they are so strict—like really super salafi guys, really big beards and stuff. No smile. Hafsa is—well, she has a strong sense of humor, and the guys Baba has been inviting home … Three or four of them were already married.”

  Nora sighed, pursed her lips, then asked, “Has he ever hit her or threatened her when she rejects a suitor?”

  “No. He…” Akram looked at the floor and his voice became soft. “Well, he has threatened her sometimes. He has pulled her hair sometimes, and Baba shouts a lot. One time he pulled off his belt like he was going to use it on her. But he never has.”

  Ben asked, “Is it possible that he hits her when you aren’t there?”

  Akram considered this. “I think she would have told me. And Mama wouldn’t have been silent about something like that. Mama’s scared of Baba’s shouting, but she can shout when it comes to Hafsa.”

  “Tell us about her volunteer work.”

  Akram said, “She goes to a few different mosques. She tries to help women learning to read and write. She can help American women with Arabic and she also helps foreign women with English.”

  “So where does she teach?”

  “Well, she’s been out to al-Aqsa mosque and to a mosque in Germantown. The last few months she’s been in Kingsessing. Sketchy neighborhood. More than sketchy, really rough. But she’s really committed to going.”

  “Do you remember the name of the mosque?” Ben asked.

  Akram shook his head. “No. I’ve driven her there a few times, but I honestly don’t remember—”

  Nora interrupted him. “If we read you a few names could you tell us if one of them sounds familiar?”

  “Sure, I’ll try.”

  “Masjid Bilal? Rahman Mosque? Unity Masjid—”

  Akram looked up. “Yeah, that’s it. I remember now. I did see the name on the door one time. They have, like, a neon sign, too. Broken.”

  Nora and Ben exchanged glances.

  “What has she said about her experiences there?” asked John.

  Akram shrugged. “Not much. She has a friend she’s always talking about. Basheera…”

  “Basheera what?” Nora pounced.

  He shook his head. “No idea. Black girl. Not a family friend,” he said, tapping the pad of paper in front of him as if to emphasize she was not on the list.

  “No record of her phone number, address, contacts—does she go to university?”

  Akram hesitated. “Her number would be in Hafsa’s phone … but that’s with Hafsa for sure. And she’s not … well, she doesn’t answer…”

  His shoulders sagged slightly, and Akram looked tired.

  Ben gave Nora a heavy look, then asked Akram for Hafsa’s cell number so that they could obtain its call history. It would take two days, though. It was time Nora didn’t feel like they had. She pressed on.

  “Did it ever occur
to you that she might be meeting someone, or using her mosque sessions as a cover for some secret relationship?”

  Akram looked genuinely shocked. “That’s nuts. If you know Hafsa, you know that’s impossible.”

  “Why?” Nora asked.

  “Because she’s so … She’s just so good. Like her and this Basheera, all Hafsa said they talk about is helping out, looking out for girls in the neighborhood, helping sisters with their reading and stuff.”

  Ben said, “We believe you, Akram. But let me ask you this: how would you feel if you found out your sister was in a relationship, or meeting someone?”

  “Maybe … maybe I should get a lawyer now?”

  “How would your dad feel?” Nora asked gently.

  Akram looked away, chewing his lip.

  Ben tried a different tack. “Have you ever heard Hafsa mention gang violence in the area?”

  “Nah, her biggest complaint is the imam. She hates him.”

  Nora leaned in. “Why is that?”

  Akram shook his head. “Honestly, I wasn’t really listening when she was talking about all that. I think he’s really conservative, maybe. The lessons he gives are really backward, bad for women. That’s the kind of stuff that bugs Hafsa.”

  Ben sighed. “But the neighborhood itself?”

  “Well, we fight sometimes ’cuz I think it’s too bad a part of town—like if Baba saw it, no way would he let her go there alone, you know? And she keeps saying she needs to go back. She says it’s a violent neighborhood, but also that she never feels threatened.”

  “Have you ever heard of the Junior Black Mafia? Or the A&As?”

  He shook his head again.

  Nora asked, “Akram, did you drop Hafsa off at the mosque the afternoon she disappeared?”

  Akram flinched. “I did. Does that make me a suspect or something? I think I should really get a lawyer now…”

  “Is it her habit to take a backpack with her? Notes, something like that?”

  Hafsa’s brother looked lost in thought for a moment. “She keeps all her stuff in her backpack…” He suddenly met Nora’s eyes. “But she left her backpack in my car that day, said her and Basheera’d just be talking to the imam about something after his lesson. She just took her bus pass and her phone.”

  Nora and Ben sat up straight in their chairs.

  “Do you still have it?” Ben demanded, his voice slightly louder than he had intended.

  Akram looked unnerved. “I—Well, it’s Philly. I put it in my trunk when I went to school so it wouldn’t get stolen, then I just … I guess I forgot about it.”

  “Is it still there?” Ben pressed.

  “I—yeah, unless Baba or Mama took it in. But I don’t think—”

  Without another word, Ben grabbed Akram’s arm and nearly dragged him downstairs to the parking garage, with Nora close behind.

  * * *

  Hafsa al-Tanukhi’s ragged blue backpack proved to be a treasure chest.

  After they dismissed her brother, Ben and Nora stood over the backpack, their hands encased in white latex gloves, each one silent. Then they began searching every inch of it. They found two English as a Second Language textbooks, and a book of how to write the Arabic letters in all of their various forms. Lodged in the front zipper pocket—along with two pens, a pack of Trident gum, and a couple of crumpled receipts—was a hair elastic, yellow, with four strands of long, wavy hair clinging to it. Nora galloped down all eight flights of stairs to place it triumphantly on Monty Watt’s slick, stainless steel table.

  She stood over him, panting slightly and clutching her aching rib. She watched as he aligned the sample from the corpse with a hair from the elastic under the imposing lens of his digital microscope. It wasn’t long before he pulled away to smile at her.

  “It’s a match. A perfect match. Look,” he moved aside, allowing her to see the screen better. “The medullary patterns are identical, both fragmented. The cortical fusi are identical in pattern as well. I could run a DNA test to be sure, but it can only confirm what I’m telling you now.”

  Nora thought she would feel triumphant at having attained the identification, but now that the corpse had a face and a name, the fact of the murder could truly sink in. A woman, looking not too different from Nora herself, had suffered terribly before dying. Suddenly, Nora found herself sinking onto the bottom step of the stairwell, completely unable to climb up to her office. She tried hard to figure out how she was going to keep from seeing the image of Hafsa’s body every minute of every day of the rest of her life. Oh my God, she whispered. She pressed her forehead to her knees and fought for breath.

  There were many times when she wondered what she was doing in this building, badge on her belt, gun under her armpit.

  Oh my God, I should have listened to Baba …

  That idea made her so angry with herself that every other thought in her head ceased. “Shit,” she said aloud, lifting her head, yanking her hair out of the elastic and then winding it all up again into its chignon.

  She sighed. I have to go upstairs. This thought was followed by another one:

  I have to figure out who did this to her.

  Still, the ascent was not quite long enough.

  Even though she’d texted him right away with the news, Calder had lingered in the interview room until she returned from the basement. “Well, what have we come away with?”

  Nora sank into a chair, thinking. “We know for sure that the last place she was seen alive was that mosque.”

  “Yes, so someone needs to go there first thing tomorrow—John will be back, or, you know … I could go with you if you want.”

  She held his gaze briefly, then said, “I’ll ask him. See what he wants to do. In the meantime, I’ll touch base with Burton before I leave today and find out what intel he’s got on the imam.”

  Ben watched her. “Breathe. Don’t stress, Nora. It’s going to take some time.”

  She shook her head slowly. “You’re forgetting something. Now that we know it’s Hafsa, we’ve got to tell her family.”

  Ben inhaled sharply. “Yeah, not me. Anyway, you’ll need a victim specialist with you. Or Chaplain Rogers.”

  Nora tilted her head. “The one time I really want you with me you don’t want to come?”

  “This is the one time?” he countered.

  She opened her mouth, then closed it again. “They don’t like me very much there,” she said, pensively.

  Ben gave a half smile. “With good reason. You’re maddeningly insensitive.” He extended a hand.

  “Me?” she protested, accepting his hand and rising from her chair.

  He released her hand swiftly and picked up his BlackBerry from the table, sliding it into his pocket, then gathered his notebook and pen. When he realized she was waiting for an explanation, he shrugged and pointed to his chest, then at her.

  “Me?” she protested again, softly, watching his eyes.

  “Yeah, you, Officer Khalil. Those Philly PD guys may take stuff like you laid on me yesterday in stride. But we federal officers are a breed apart, see? Sensitive.”

  She nodded, feeling his sadness despite the lightness of his tone. “I see.”

  “No, Nora, I don’t think you do, actually,” he replied, as he headed out the door. He paused, then motioned for her to follow. “Come on, then,” he said brusquely. “Let’s track down the chaplain. He’s more sensitive than both of us put together.”

  * * *

  Chaplain Rogers was a sixty-seven-year-old black man with sharp eyes and graying temples. He was, without doubt, a sensitive fellow. However, he was entirely unprepared for the scene that Sanaa Faraj put on when Nora told her that her only daughter was dead.

  It had been with great trepidation that Hafsa’s father stood aside and ushered Nora and the chaplain into his home. He knew, Nora realized. He knew as soon as he saw her.

  When the chaplain invited Omar al-Tanukhi to sit—an absurd thing to say in the man’s own home, Nora realized, and
a dead giveaway—he refused.

  “No. No, I will not,” he insisted.

  It was loud enough to bring his wife to the living room, breathless, her headscarf not quite pinned into place. She looked from Nora to the chaplain, struggling to piece together the reason for this new visit.

  “As-salaam alaykum,” Nora murmured in greeting.

  Mrs. Faraj responded, then softly asked to know what had happened. She turned to her husband and found tears streaming down his cheeks and disappearing into his vast beard.

  “La’a,” she whispered. No.

  The chaplain began to speak, saying as gently as he could that the body of their daughter had been found in gang territory, and that they had only just positively identified it as Hafsa. He spoke the name carefully, having practiced its pronunciation with Nora on the drive over; he clutched the usual sheaf of papers that included numbers to call for counseling and case manager contacts. Chaplain Rogers understood that the family would ask for the body to be buried right away, and he was ready to explain that the Bureau needed to keep the body for a few more days as evidence that would help them find the killer.

  But he couldn’t get beyond the first sentence. Sanaa collapsed in devastated, unremitting screaming. “My daughter,” she howled, falling to the floor.

  Nora had expected the worst from Hafsa’s father, but he simply stood, rooted to the beige carpeting, weeping silently, looking lost, and ignoring his wife completely.

  Meanwhile, Sanaa slapped her palms against her face, shrieking. The torrent of words that poured from her startled Nora. “Hafsaaaaaa—” she cried. “My daughter!”

  Nora had explained to the chaplain that he should not touch Mrs. Faraj, but that he could offer advice and comfort, and his usual hugs would be perceived as a breach of etiquette. Still, he inadvertently took a step toward her, wanting to lift her off the floor.

  Nora stepped in and tried to coax Mrs. Faraj to a standing position, but she would have none of it. She shrieked Hafsa’s name over and over, pulling at her clothing, tears sluicing over her thick, black lashes.

  The scene set off in Nora a clear memory of appearing unannounced on the dim threshold of her grandmother’s Cairo apartment. It was a sweltering July day. Her grandmother opened the door to find Nora and Ahmad standing there, sweating hands clutched hard together, and Ragab panting up the steep, dark stairs to the fifth floor … Nora had seen the quick joy of the surprise dissolve in the realization that their coming, tear-stained and somber, could only mean that an airport van was navigating the crush of afternoon traffic with a casket in its hold. Nora remembered the scream, the collapse, her aunt running in alarm from the kitchen.